Mediterranean Faces

[SaintDaveUK]

I wish all these newer portrait packs were done to the same style and quality as the original Western/Muslim/Mongol sets.

does the russian portrait pack have unique crowns? I'm thinking of getting it

Yes the Russian Portraits have unique crowns.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

I think he refers to the probable existence of a Scandinavian face pack revealed in the screenshot of the grand mayor of Gotland.

Can anyone post a link?

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Sure: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=69163&d=1355154054

Lol they look weirdly similar to the Nord portrait set I have been making for Elder Kings

 

[SaintDaveUK]

You guys using the same program maybe?

Photoshop and a graphics pen tablet? I think it's likely

 

[SaintDaveUK]

I'll buy it but probably end up using just the hair and the clothes.

 

[Goosecreature]

This is nothing to spam smileys about. Black north Italians...

Turn that frown upside down!

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Also, ethnicity is defined differently from culture, right? So the Jimenas and northern Italians could keep both their Mediterranean culture and their Frankish ethnicity, while randomly generated Italians would have the Mediterranean faces.

Spot on

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Whoah! That makes absolutely no sense... Having accurate, realistic-looking faces is in fact important for a DLC which only purpose is to grant just that! If the African facepack had been whites would it also have been racist to complain about that?

I disagree with this. I think the primary reason for people buying the portrait DLCs is not for the desire to make the game more realistic. Rather it is for a little bit of variety during the game and also a small degree of 'freshness' from having something new.

If they made the portraits very similar to the generic Western portraits then they wouldn't achieve this at all.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

2) Doesn't make sense at all. You guys are calling people who want realistic portraits racist because they don't want Racial Caricatures for the sake of 'variety'? This shit is getting convoluted now.

I haven't called anyone racist. In fact I do think they are too dark. I was just offering a different perspective for the sake of discussion.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Luckily, even though I would have liked more diversity, I'm quite happy with the current caucasian faces for greeks, italians and iberians, and the arabic ones for andalusians and north africans. If the DLC ends up as horrible as we can see now, I'll just miss the specific crowns and clothes.

You can easily mod it so that you get all the DLC crowns but keep vanilla faces.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

So when is it released on Steam? I thought the Store updates at 6pm UK time

 

[SaintDaveUK]

"Take a look at modern Mediteranean people if you want. Just google famous Spanish, Italian and Greek people and take a look at them. Iker Casillas? You all know him, his as pale as any Swede. Cristiano Ronaldo? Ok, he's tanned, but not brown."

Portugal is not a Mediterranean country. Has no border with the sea. Spain is only partially Medditenrean. Much of it is Atlantic. Arguably Costa del Sol, Andalucia and the easter sea board is only Med. This makes sense as the Catalans were the medditernean sea-goers not Castilians or Lusitanians. Castillians are no more Med's than the Irish are, unless you go further south in Andalucia because of the Phoenician/Carthiginain influence.

For every pale skin med you will find 4 dark skinned. That is the point. Its not a counter arguement. Same way that for every native swarthy scandaniavian with dark hair and eyes (and there are those) you will find 3 stereotypical ones.

you don't make cogent counter arguements by using an exception to the rule to make your point.

I think you are taking the term "Mediterranean" a little too literally. Under your classification, the Vatican is not mediterranean.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

I agree with you, does anyone have a mod-fix yet that allows you to keep this but revert to vanilla faces

I can work on one now if people want it.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Here is the hotfix people have asked for.

It simply reverts the affected cultures back to their original Western or Muslim faces, but keeps the beards, clothing and headgear of the new DLC.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...Mediterranean-Portraits-DLC-Vanilla-Faces-Fix

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Maybe they realize how awful Med.Portraits are and revamp them. A man can dream... a man can dream..

No need, just use my hotfix;
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...Mediterranean-Portraits-DLC-Vanilla-Faces-Fix


With the Mediterranean DLC:

With my new Vanilla Faces Fix:

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Glad I didn't buy these faces! I prefer the old ones.

I think you should buy the DLC - it's only £1 for a good degree of variety within the otherwise bland Europe - if you dislike the faces themselves then just download my Vanilla Faces mod.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

I think its both really. Frankly, I brought it, and am just glad I found a way to disable it (deleting "DLC014" files). I dont want a refund or anything, it would be silly for that cheap an item, but even for the sake of 'variety', there was no way to put up with this much ugly and this much wrong. I try to give everything a fair shake, but this specific pack is just a bad product. Its like.. someone woke up and decided to run a social experiment on customer loyalty. Im sorry to the artists, this must be hard to read. This being said, can only improve given criticism;

Regarding skin tone, yes, too dark. Make it less Moorish. This being said, thats easy, the real suggestion relates to artistic design choices. Clearly the artist decided to value what seemed realistic over aesthetics but that recipe only goes so far. Compared to default faces, this pack made most Mediteranean faces ugly. Especially the women. I mean, this pack could be recycled as unique visuals for anyone with the Ugly trait. Aesthetics are important. They can be tempered with realism, but in a game about little armies, charts and data, the only eye candy we get are portraits. It should be taken into account.

I recommend using my mod. You get to keep the cool new hair, beards and clothing for the sake of variety, but the faces which you hate are reverted back to vanilla faces.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...Mediterranean-Portraits-DLC-Vanilla-Faces-Fix

PS. you can disable DLC in the launcher, you don't have to delete it

 

[SaintDaveUK]

You like faces, that look like some draugr from skyrim?
And like I said before, women dont look realistic, and they all look "evil" somehow. They dont have nice faces. All faces are rather "mean"

They don't look quite as bad as Draugr